Turning Gears
by kazlene
Summary: A young mare's life in a dystopian Equestria.


It is told that many, many years ago ponies, griffons, zebra and all forms of life lived Above Ground. Together all the of the land's creature lived in what was called harmony. In theory this "harmony" meant that all the sentient beings would get along with each other. There are still old world murals in our city of these days. But those days have been gone for a good number of centuries now. At least.

You can hear the tale, a legend really, passed down mouth to mouth, from the old grandponies. It was told in the days Above Ground, two ponies, sisters, ruled from a top a mountain. These sisters were of a species no longer seen, referred to as Alicorns. The elder of the Alicorns would raise a fiery ball of light each day so the hard working ponies could work. The younger would raise a pale glowing orb called the Moon so the creatures of the land could rest. Through this cycle, a cycle so similar to our current cycle, peace was maintained and colorful little ponies would frolic in daffodil meadows sun up to sun down. Like a foal's tale.

Now the rest of the tale is really where one finds variations. Mainly because no pony has any bucking idea what happend. I have heard things from mongoose overlords attacking with bananas to simply a bad batch of cupcakes. The most commonly told tale though in these parts is a tale about a shadow.

It is said a shadow, it is argued whether the shadow was a physical or metaphorical thing, enter the castle of the Royal Pony Sisters one day and crept unto them when they were unaware. It affected the eldest first but the younger was not far behind. Now this is where some of the legend can be traced back to fact. The two fought, that is known. They controlled the sun and the moon of course, and that is what they weilded against each other. And that is what forced ponies from Above Ground to the Underground where we live to this day. In their battle, possessed as they were, the deities had not a thought for their subjects, merely for each other.

In the battle many pony towns and villages were completely annihilated, no survivors. The Capitol city of the time, a place known as Canterlot, crumbled off of its mountaintop. In fact most stories and books agreed that the very mountain was destroyed and a good many of the books say it was the same mountain the alicorns ruled from. Now Canterlot, though, is one of the few locations with survivors, but I'll get to that later.

Now comes stuff straight from the texts books, the stuff ponies and griffons alike are forced to learn in school. In quite a few locations creatures managed to get away from the warring sisters. I didn't pay to much attention when I did go to school and I had to drop out when I was young anyways so.. Well I dot know all he technical stuff about the forming of our towns. I know that our village was founded by some unicorn noble that had lived up in the capitol. And let me tell you if the founder Blueblood was anything like his descendents, and I wouldn't doubt he was, then he would have been a bucking unpleasant pony. It was argued though if Bluebloor was the true founder, some ponies whispered about a yellow Pegasus. I think this was partly to explain the roaming wild animals that would as easily rummage through a pony's trash as gobble up a stray foal. I actually hoped that the Blueblood founder tale was the true one, the few tales I had heard abou the Pegasus made her sound so nice, a foals tale fairy godmother sort.

Anyways our town, our town... It was known as Underville officially, more often referred to as Dustville. And it, like so many other towns still around it was ruled by its founder's family. Unfortunately. Our town happened to be located partly underneath a place called Ponyville and partly under a place called the Everfree Forest. Supposedly the town was originally supposed to be modeled after that small town but...well. Lets just say living underground changes things. For one its harder to keep things bright and clean. It's told that Ponyville was a bright and colorful place and from the pictures I've seen in the school textbooks that may very well be true. However I'm going to take anything those meddling, no good, Blueblood's might have a hoof in with a grain of salt. What I did know was that our city was dusty and overpopulated. Despite being Capitol and supposed shining gem of the Under Grounds most ponies spent their entire short lives lives scraping together bits to leave this town. I've never met a single pony that made it out. I hav however met plenty of ponies that made it in. It's felted to entire of course, who doesn't want to visit the largest city Under Ground where fresh fruit grows and clean water flows. However oddly enough we are the only gosh durned town that charges civilians to leave. I had asked around. Some ponies just lived traveling town to town before getting stuck here and they were often the most honest source of news.

I wished I could get out of this town, stuck down in the slums wondering day to day where I would get food and hoping that the Patrol wouldn't pick me up for the forced work camps as they often did with what they judged as the unwanted homeless. I had a younger sister to watch out for in this harsh world and if I wasn't there I didn't think she could fend for herself as little as she was. Luckily I was often able to make a few quick bits as a sort of traveling mechanic. And being useful I could keep my sis safe in this crumby hole of a slum.


End file.
